Life… love… politics… the full catastrophe!

Sunday Sermon (Picking up the Pieces)

¡Hola! Everybody…The stupidest thing I’m seeing this week concerns the so-called “protest” against Obama’s commencement address at Notre Dame. First, there are perhaps one dozen people doing the protesting. Why is this news? Secondly, a plurality of Catholics approve of Obama speaking at Notre Dame. Finally, where were these people when Bush, he certainly espoused anti-Christian values (war, death penalty, etc.)?

Can you say… hypocrites?!!

I’m on the way out — I have to work today. I get paid to talk, isn’t that something? LOL I might use a version of the following…

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-=[ The Starfish Story ]=-

Early one morning a man was walking along the beach, watching the ocean waves breaking on the shore, and he saw a most unusual thing. He saw that the beach was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed up on shore and were dying in the sun. Far down the beach in the distance, he could see a young woman picking up starfish and throwing them back in the ocean, one at a time.

When he was close enough to her to be heard above the waves the man said, “You’re wasting your time. There are thousands of starfish here. You can’t possibly make any difference.” The young woman reached down, picked up a starfish, and threw it as far as she could, back into the sea. “I made a difference to that one,” she said, and she reached down to pick up another.

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The message and implication of the story is clear — all our actions reverberate, making an indelible impact, however small, in the fabric of our interconnectedness. But I also use this story to illustrate another, more personal, but equally important point.

Sometimes, when we awaken from the wreckage of our past and attempt to pick up the pieces, it may seem like an impossible task. Like the seashore littered with all those thousands of starfish, it may seem to us that nothing we do will make a difference. But as in the story, the point is to make the commitment to pick up the pieces. Every little action you take, one day at a time — sometimes one breath at a time — makes all the difference. The point isn’t found in perfection, it is uncovered in the practice.

One by one, you pick up the pieces… Over there, the pieces of your shattered heart, by that rock, the shards of your mind, there, blowing in the wind, your withered soul. You pick them up one by one, lovingly, with compassion, and you give them sustenance and one day you look and you are more whole, more balanced, and you will feel how far you have journeyed.

And in that way the reverberations you send out leave an indelible mark on the fabric of all that is connected and bring back to life all the dead zones within you.